The Only Collection Of Foundational Exercises For Bass Players Who Play Bass Lines!

On Feb 5th 2010 I published my first ever bass book...called Bass Hanon.

However, as detailed elsewhere, I pulled it soon afterwards because:

• The exercises are based on piano exercises, and the point of the exercises was to work on strengthening and independence for the fingers when playing piano. As such, the exercises aren’t particularly musical.
• The exercises were written over 150 years ago BEFORE the bass guitar was invented and before the language of the bass guitar began to be developed in jazz and blues and therefore have little relevance bass players.

But.

I wrote a Bonus Report called BASS HANON VARIATIONS where I detailed how the original Hanon exercises could be adapted to work on specific playing issues that students needed to work on. That methodology stayed with me as I actively sought to discover bass exercises that met the following criteria:

• Contained material (devices) that you could take and use in real world bass lines.
• Could be played with real world rhythms (and with multiple different rhythmic options).
• Were played within chordal frameworks that correspond to the kind of chordal progressions found in songs in rock and pop.
• Could be adapted to work on technique development.
• Could be adapted to work on fretboard familiarity.

Whenever I'm looking for the answers to bass questions I almost invariably find that...

It's no secret how highly I regard Motown bass legend James Jamerson. By studying his work I was able to begin the process of identifying the pieces of bass vocabulary that form the DNA of the language of bass. While working out how to practice those devices - the DNA of the bass language -  with a thorough and disciplined method I was flicking through Standing In The Shadows Of Motown and found gold on Page 91:

The text that accompanies this exercise tells us:

• Jamerson developed this etude (and taught it to session bass player Ron Brown) to help him practice his chromatic approach to bass playing.
• The etude is a four bar phrase (with variations) that goes through the cycle of fifths.
• The variations in the etude allowed Jamerson to stay in the open and lower positions of the bass.

This idea became the foundation for the exercises that I developed to help me (and my students) with bass practice that meets the criteria noted above.

Rather than give you a spiel about Origin Exercises, I'd prefer to demonstrate them so you can see notation and tab and hear the exercises being played. The following series of exercises are excerpted from my book Learning From James Jamerson Volume 1...and you should be able to see (and hear) how the exercises conform to the guidelines outlined above.

Additionally you should be able to find a point on the learning sequence that represents YOUR ability level and then visualize that if you practiced that level thoroughly and mastered it that if you moved to the next level, how you could use that exercise you've learned to improve your bass playing!

The device used to demonstrate this process is the 8-6-5-6 with the 8-6-5-8 variation. Here’s an exercise in quarter notes:

The next exercise is to use the device at a quarter note level, but execute it with 8th note rhythms by replacing each quarter note with two 8th notes. Like this:

The next exercises practices the 8-6-5-6 and 8-6-5-8 devices on the back end of the bar (beats 3 and 4) at an 8th note level.

To make the separation between front end of the bar and back end of the bar clear, I’m going to play a root note on the downbeat of each bar and then play either 8-6-5-6 or 8-6-5-8 in 8th notes on the back end of the bar:

From here it gets rhythmically interesting. You can see (and hear) that the 8-6-5-6 device is conceived and played at an 8th note level. What we can do now is practice different 16th note rhythms on the back end of the bar using rhythmic replacement. Although this creates a 16th note feel, the device is still being conceived at an 8th note level.

Here’s the kind of exercise you can do with 16th Note Rhythm 1:

Here’s the same exercise, but this time we’re using 16th Note Rhythm 2

That should give you a good idea of the kind of learning sequence you can use to work on your skills using essentially the same exercise.

There are further variations you could use:

• The remaining four 16th note rhythms
• Practicing the devices at a 16th note level - so each device note gets a duration of a 16th note
• Practicing for 'time'

And so on.

And although I've demonstrated this exercise with a simple I-IV to I-IV-V chord progression, there are plenty of different progressions you can use to practice devices ranging from cycle tracks to common chord progressions.

Here's A Picture Of My Amazon.com Bookshelf (early Sept - 2022)

Since July 2021 I've been turning my years of teaching into books.  So far I've written 14 (plus am working on another to be published in either September or October and this programme will lead to three more as by products!).

My advice: click this link for LEARNING FROM JAMES JAMERSON VOL 1 and then check out some of the reviews. That will tell you more about my teaching than almost anything, though there are some testimonials below too.

One other fact to consider about this: Amazon's data says that most books get 1 or 2 reviews per 1000 copies purchased. Jamerson Vol 1 currently has 168 reviews on Amazon.com from around 2000 copies sold since its release last August...so the fact that it's getting 50X the number of reviews that Amazon's own data suggests it should be getting, tells its own story.

Origin Exercises For Bass is a unique collection of foundational exercises that will help you develop your bass playing in the following four areas:

Here's What Bass Players Just Like You Say About My Teaching - here's Rodi:

And Paulia:

And Rob (and Goran):

Here's How The Program Will Be Delivered...and Details of Bonuses

When ORIGIN EXERCISES FOR BASS is complete it will contain hundreds of exercises that you can use to work on your rhythm, or your playing of devices within specific chordal contexts, or your 16th note precision, or your time.

Plus by using the 'learning sequence' built into the different exercises for each device you can work on your technique levels too.

When this program is complete....it will be at least $127 (and worth every cent in my humble but accurate opinion).

For the beta run though your investment won't be that though...if you jump in today your investment is....

Your investment today is...

Paul Wolfe, SW England

P.S. If there's any info you need to make a decision then just drop me an email and ask away!

P.P.S if you're in the UK and want to enroll, drop me an email as I've got a Paypal Link to a UK Only price that will save you a few quid due to the poor rate of sterling against the USD.